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A career criminal who called himself a “
master thief” and penned a treatise on the business of burglary will have plenty of time to expand
on his writings.

U.S. District Judge George C. Smith sentenced Sean D. Murphy to 20 years in prison
yesterday.

Murphy, 47, of Lynn, Mass., was the mastermind behind the theft of $2.3 million in January 2009
from the Brinks warehouse in South Linden. A federal jury in Columbus convicted him in October of
the burglary, finding him guilty of conspiracy to transport stolen goods, racketeering and
interstate transportation of stolen goods.

Bruce Woerner, director of security for Brinks, said the theft damaged the company’s reputation
and cost it $5 million in losses.

“He thought he was smarter than other criminals,” Woerner said in a victim’s statement. “The
defendant has no remorse for what he’s done.”

Murphy did apologize to Brinks yesterday and said he’s ready to retire from a life of crime.

“I can’t do it no more,” he said in a thick Boston accent. “I’m just done.”

While he was in prison, he wrote a manuscript,
Master Thief: How To Be a Professional Burglar, which outlined many of the techniques he
used in the Brinks theft.

He had begged Smith to give him a reduced sentence of about 10 years, saying he had assisted
investigators by telling them how to make buildings more burglar-proof, provided the FBI with
information about other criminals and taped a training video on elite burglaries for the FBI after
he was arrested.

Murphy said he was lured into a life of crime by his brother, Michael, and that he received no
money from the Brinks theft.

The court probation officer recommended 25 years in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Salvador A.
Dominguez said that, before the trial, Murphy declined a plea deal of 10 years in prison. Dominguez
also said that Murphy’s difficult upbringing is irrelevant because he has shunned opportunities to
rehabilitate himself.

Smith read a list of Murphy’s previous convictions, which included 13 counts of breaking and
entering, 11 counts of larceny, eight counts of receiving stolen property and two counts of armed
robbery. Murphy still faces charges for a 2008 burglary in Attleboro, Mass., where $2 million in
gold and jewelry were stolen.

“Apparently the only way to stop him is a lengthy period of incarceration,” Smith said.

During the Columbus theft, the burglars used a cellphone jammer to override the warehouse
security system, drilled holes in the warehouse roof to gain access and cut into the vault with a
special drill. The drill, however, set the cash inside on fire.

Morgan was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison, while Doucette, whose testimony
helped convict Murphy, got two years and three months in prison.

All three also were ordered to pay a share of $1.3 million in restitution. Some of the money was
recovered earlier.

Edward J. Hanko, FBI special agent in charge of the Cincinnati division, said the sentence was
the culmination of collaboration among FBI agents in Columbus and Boston and police in Columbus,
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.